As a child, I hated Mickey Rooney. His Andy Hardy films frequently turned up on the two cable stations that my family got during competing Saturday afternoon movie marathons, which caused me no end of bitter frustration as I wanted Ma and Pa Kettle every week without fail. I’d take Abbott and Read the rest of this entry »

Frank Langella used his eyes, tousled hair, and a turtleneck to seduce you with ease. His youthful seduction has been exchanged for an aged gravitas. He’d rather not have to look at the gradual transformation.

Frank Langella recently said in an interview on NPR that he doesn’t like to look at his movies. He made the analogy of going up into an attic and paging through photo albums, which forces you to look at your own aging over the years – and, as I extrapolate – the loss of the past, which is now contained only in a fragile image and perhaps an even more fragile memory.

For me, I don’t have to page through photo albums. Just watching old films, especially ones from childhood, sometimes brings me an acute sense of time passage and loss. Since I associate movies, TV, and music with specific periods of my life, I am often Read the rest of this entry »

I had always held out hope that the great triumvirate of Hal David, Burt Bacharach, and Dionne Warwick would reunite for one last great project, a classic album that would put a final stamp on their 1960s-early 70s run as the best long-term teaming of lyricist, composer, and singer in pop music.

Hal David made some appearances in the last decade with former songwriting partner Burt Bacharach and their most enduring interpreter, Dionne Warwick. Here is the trio in 2002. I wish they’d headed to the studio for a new album after the shot. Rick Rubin could have given it a go as producer.

Not to be. Lyricist Hal David died on the first day of this September at the age of 91.

He’ll be forever remembered for a slew songs made classic by Warwick, but also by Dusty Springfield, The Carpenters, Tom Jones, The Fifth Dimension, and many others.

Though I cop to leaning toward the morose and maudlin in my musical tastes, fed largely by melancholy French chanson, wrenching rancheras, hard-luck country & western, and gloomy American pop standards, sometimes even I need a pick-me-up.

One of the first songs that I can remember from my childhood is Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head. A small child easily Read the rest of this entry »

Marvin Hamlisch: the man who made you understand what it means to fuck James Bond. Carole Bayer Sager and Carly Simon helped.

Yes, I know he wrote The Way We Were, The Entertainer from The Sting, and A Chorus Line, which, on a side note, I saw on Broadway starring Saved by the Bell‘s Mario Lopez. But Marvin Hamlisch solidified his status forever with me by writing Nobody Does It Better, the theme song from the 1977 James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, with then- Read the rest of this entry »